Dropping Red Light Hazard

Throw­ing a lit­tle (bro­ken) light on dropped objects

Marine Safety Forum says “A recent report from a Plat­form Sup­ply Ves­sel has high­lighted a seri­ous inci­dent on board con­cern­ing a dropped object from an off­shore instal­la­tion crane. Although no injuries were sus­tained as a result of this inci­dent, the deck crew were work­ing on the main deck of the PSV at the time and could have been struck by this dropped object.

At 1750 hours, a bang was heard from the top of the PSV’s bridge/monkey island. The sec­ond  offi­cer went up to inves­ti­gate and came down with the remains of a red lamp. This lamp was first believed to be part of the ship’s NUC light but when tested the ship’s NUC lights were found to working.

You wouldn’t want this to put your lights out

Just before the bang, the port crane on the off­shore instal­la­tion was dis­charg­ing cargo from a bay close to the PSV’s bridge with the boom point­ing towards the bridge. The crane dri­ver was asked if he was miss­ing any of his red lights and he replied that the top one was not working.

Pos­si­ble Con­se­quences of Near Miss: Per­sonal injury if the dropped lamp had hit a mem­ber of the deck crew work­ing on the main deck.

Cor­rec­tive Action Taken by Ves­sel: Reported the inci­dent to the instal­la­tion. Sus­pended cargo oper­a­tions to investigate.